Dave Dieter/The Huntsville TimesDr. Craig Pouncey, deputy state superintendent of education, discusses causes of and solutions to Huntsville City Schools' debt with the school board and city officials Friday morning.

It's not OK, it's not normal, and it's not happening everywhere else. Huntsville City Schools appear adrift in uncharted waters, nearly $20 million in debt, facing more layoffs and more school closings.

A plan to cut spending by millions is needed within the next few months, or the system risks bankruptcy and state takeover, according to both the state and the mayor.

"It's not a money problem. It's a management problem," said Mayor Tommy Battle late Friday. "We should be able to provide excellence in education for the money we are providing them."

But the city school board, having decided last summer not to renew the contract of the superintendent, is months away from naming a new chief. And made abundantly clear at Thursday's board meeting was that no one within the school system has yet stepped forward to lead the spending cuts.

For starters, the emissary from Montgomery, while delivering stern warnings for more than a half hour, didn't even face the board members.

That may see like a small thing. But in eight years of covering that board, I never once saw a state educator or politician speak about the board to the audience, as if the board members weren't present.

Dr. Craig Pouncey, the state's deputy superintendent over finance, might not have intended any hidden meaning; he may have simply conceived of his address as a message to a concerned public.

On Thursday, Pouncey called it "troubled waters." Huntsville schools finished the last fiscal year $19.5 million in debt, by far the deepest in the state. Only 12 of 132 systems finished in the red, and most were small, rural systems with little tax support. Despite two years of recession and state budget cuts, the other urban school systems had managed to keep some money in the bank as of Oct. 1.

Pouncey's candor was also unusual. The state department, as a a general rule, does not criticize local school boards.

But Pouncey didn't pull punches, saying the Huntsville system remained bloated with out-of-date expectations, having nearly as many employees and buildings as it did decades ago when the system was closer to 35,000 kids than the current 23,000.

The numbers themselves were troubling. Last spring's 200 layoffs were just a beginning. Pouncey said those layoffs reduced the city system's payroll by $14.8 million. But the board was spending more than it had, and the layoffs left only $7.6 million extra per year to pay down the debt.

At that rate, it would take Huntsville five years to claw back to having a month's worth of cash reserves, as required by state law.

"That's totally unacceptable," he said. And state educators don't pop into town and say words like "unacceptable" a whole lot, either.

Pouncey went so far as to compare the system's current planning to someone programming a GPS navigation system and driving away with it in the trunk.

Beyond the big picture, Pouncey was painting an image of a smaller, much less affluent system, something unknown here. He dug into details and urged everything from making softball booster clubs raise money for the team trips to making buses run more routes and children wait longer to using federal grants to pay salaries instead of buying all those computers.

These small things, commonplace in tax-poor systems like Madison County Schools, will mark a new era for Huntsville, long envied in the state for its advanced placement courses, magnet schools and long lists of foreign languages. Pouncey did attempt to finish on note of optimism, saying there was still time, just not a whole lot, to "pull us out of the ditch."

But the system has slipped into a lame duck phase, with Superintendent Ann Roy Moore told she would be leaving on July 1. There is no designated leader for the future, but there is a sudden call for creative cutting and long-term planning.

So here's how the board responded to the unusual dressing down:

Topper Birney thanked Pouncey for his information. David Blair also thanked Pouncey, but seemed to undercut his outward gratitude. "Luckily none of this was really a surprise for us," he told Pouncey.

Jennie Robinson disagreed with Blair, and instead pointed a veiled finger at Moore. "I saw information tonight that I never ever saw before."

Laurie McCaulley may have been telling Robinson to stop blaming Moore when she said that none of the information was new: "It's been said before, but just not the way you said it."

Alta Morrison made a joke about not having money to purchase Pouncey a speaker's gift.

And Moore, who sat through most of Thursday's presentation with her chin in her hand, called it a paradigm shift. "We never in my knowledge had to think about reducing so many things," she said.

On Thursday, the audience was packed with stakeholders and politicians.

Madison County Commissioner Faye Dyer rose to warn that there would be no local sales tax rescue. "The public has been urging me not to throw money at something that can be managed with better fiscal responsibility," she said.

Ed Starnes, former board member, advised the board to give the public options, as in a certain number of layoff or closings compared to a tax increase. And then accept the result. "And good luck," Starnes said, "God, you need it."

Battle said late Friday that the city has gotten involved, sending in the county's former school finance director David Smith and city financial adviser Phil Dotts to offer advice. Battle said city and business leaders are concerned about leadership and that discussions have covered everything including recall elections and changing to an appointed school board.

"The board has to step up and be leaders," Battle said, at one point saying there are only two solutions: "Either change the management (decisions) or change the person."